Labour’s lead over Tories skyrockets to 54% – 28% in London as local election doom looms for Theresa May

Labour’s poll lead over the Conservatives in London has skyrocketed, with the gap between the two parties widening to a staggering 26 percentage points – a rise which now has the potential to spell doom for Theresa May’s premiership in the upcoming local elections with long-held Tory boroughs looking likely to fall.

The Tories are now lagging behind in the capital on just 28% of the vote share, whilst Labour are riding high with a projected 54% of the vote.

The YouGov survey for Queen Mary University of London shows Labour’s poll lead has skyrocketed by 16% since the last local elections were held in London in 2014.

And, with just over two months to go until the residents take to the polls on May 3rd, Theresa May’s position could well be under severe threat should the Tories suffer catastrophic losses in some of their heartland boroughs as the latest poll predicts.

The numbers are now so convincing for Labour that even overwhelmingly Conservative-voting areas such as Wandsworth, Westminster, Barnet, and even Hillingdon are all mooted to fall in the next round of local elections.

Philip Cowley of the Mile End Institute, a Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London, told the London Evening Standard:

Labour are looking forward to the best performance in vote share in London by any party since 1968.

Adding that:

The massive swing in inner London in this poll is enough to turn both Westminster and Wandsworth red. In outer London, they should take Barnet, Hillingdon looks very close, and although boundary changes make Bexley very difficult to predict that too looks as if it could be close. These councils could still all go one way or the other by May – but the fact is the Tories are in trouble in all of them.

On news of the devastating poll numbers, one Tory source is reported to have told the Standard that “some Conservative MPs are only waiting for the town hall results before deciding whether to write letters to Sir Graham Brady”, the chair of the 1922 Committee, seeking a vote of no confidence.

And, in further devastating blows to the Tories’ prospects, this latest survey also shows that Theresa May’s party are trailing Labour by 78% to 12% among black and minority ethnic voters, whilst almost 10% of those who voted Tory in the 2017 General Election would switch to Labour for the local elections.

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